


The Lament of the Unrequited

by lori (zakhad)



Series: Canon Flirtations [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8344723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: It has been far too busy to work on WIPs this week.So here is an artifact I found in a folder and polished a little.





	

Since love first made the breast an instrument  
Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart  
Was molten to a mirror, like a rose  
I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang  
This mirror in your sight.

Muhammad Iqbal

 

\--------------------

 

It was clear to him that something was going on -- of course, he didn't want to know anything so personal as whatever made Deanna's eyes glisten that way from time to time. But it was enough to make him wonder, when he started to notice that in conversations his counselor stopped looking at him.

There was not a thing he could say about it. Not in a session.

"I haven't had a nightmare in the past week." He picked up his tea to cover the slight shake of his hand. It was the last in a long list of updates -- symptoms that had been resolving, over the weeks following his time in the hands of the Cardassians.

She looked over his shoulder and smiled the same smile, with a hint of sadness that persisted through everything these days. "I'm glad to hear that you're feeling so much better. I think we can meet less often if this is going to be consistent -- it's reassuring that you've come to a point where you make use of therapy without hesitation or resistance."

"I'm glad to hear it. You have a lot of clients who need your time, I'm sure. I appreciate your willingness to work with me so diligently, Counselor."

She looked down at her own hands. He thought she might cry -- she had a face that broadcasted her emotions so well, and at the moment she seemed to tremble on the verge of breaking down. To his relief, she didn't. She nodded and stood, moving from her end of the couch in her office to her desk, and tapped a few commands.

"I'll see you in two weeks," she said, and he got up and straightened his jacket.

"Thank you." He ignored the moment of indecision, the impulse to ask her what was wrong -- he counted her a friend, and he was concerned -- but left the office and headed for the bridge.

\----------------

Picard sat down in the observation lounge for the latest of a string of briefings. He wanted to keep his staff apprised of the latest murmurings on the Dominion and to discuss the next mission. The door opened, and Deanna came in -- she hesitated noticeably when she saw he was the only one present, but came in and sat in the third chair from him on the right with a cup in hand.

"Good morning, sir."

"Are you recovered from your experience, Counselor?"

Her smile lit up her eyes -- there were moments that his heart stopped, when she looked at him. Moments not unlike so many others, with so many women throughout his life -- he might have never said as much but he appreciated beautiful women, and she was that. One of the more beautiful he'd ever met, in fact. It had been nearly six years with her working closely with him and he could manage most days to ignore her, look anywhere other than her face most of the time --

Her eyes slid off to look out at the stars, and the now-familiar sadness tinged her expression. "I'm quite recovered, thank you. I think I have a better appreciation for those officers who sometimes go undercover, now. And I still have some psychosomatic itching -- I don't know what was used to put the prosthetics on my forehead, but I appear to be allergic to it. Just thinking about the experience I start to want to scratch my forehead."

Her time as a Romulan had impressed him. She'd been so unlike herself, and meeting with her afterward he had seen how unnerving and anxiety-provoking it had been for her. So odd, to see the woman who could be so calm and reassuring while others were going through horrible pain, going through it herself.

"Good. I have to say, you made an astoundingly convincing Romulan -- for a moment I thought I'd met your doppelgänger -- German folklore," he said with a fond smile.

"Yes, I'm familiar with that term. An apparition -- sort of a paranormal twin." Her eyes flicked to him, met his, and darted away again. She sipped from her cup and her eyelids swept down.

Again, she seemed sad -- it had been an ongoing thing, for weeks. Beverly had commented at breakfast the other day that Deanna appeared to be going through something but that the counselor hadn't told her what, which she found unusual enough that she vented about it to him. Beverly had wanted him to tell her if he thought the same. He had dodged the question by professing ignorance -- he'd been busy enough, he'd claimed, that it hadn't come to his attention.

They were all good friends by this point. He'd tried to maintain distance; his senior officers would persist in accepting him as he was, and smile and laugh with him when they could pry in and make him smile. Deanna had been one of the hardest for him to feel comfortable with, as he'd known all along that she could tell he was struggling -- when he felt the moments of attraction followed rapidly by guilt, for example. Over the past months he'd just felt whatever he felt, and given up on the guilt. She'd never said a word about it. Hell, she'd probably had the same from everyone, and ignored it just the same.

Again, he found himself on the verge of asking what was wrong. He'd nearly done so many times, over the past couple of months. He caught her with that sadness in her eyes often. But the door opened. Will Riker came in, nodded to Picard, and turned a brilliant smile on Deanna -- as usual. For years he had watched Riker and Troi smile at each other. This was the first morning he could recall seeing her ignore him completely. She had to sense him there, now losing the enthusiasm and being confused and concerned, and yet she kept her attention on the table in front of her and pretended otherwise.

"Good morning, Will," Picard said.

"Good morning, sir." Will stepped over the chair and dropped into it as usual, and turned his attention to Picard. "There have been rumors of music in the Jeffries tubes."

"Music?" Picard kept a straight face -- he had plenty of experience with being calm under fire. He and Nella had been practicing in the usual spot for a week. The acoustics in the fourth intersect in Jeffries tube twenty-five were perfect.

Then the rest of the senior staff filed in. Will turned to greet Data, who sat down next to him. Life moved on.

\-------------------

"Jean-Luc," Beverly said softly.

He looked up at her face, and found a concerned friend looking back at him. "Beverly."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I suppose I'm not myself, today."

"That's every day, since Nella left. You miss her."

He grimaced at it. "I suppose."

"Why aren't you talking to your counselor about it? I'd thought it would have resolved by now -- it's not like you were so head over heels."

"I -- " He put down the cup on the saucer, and put the saucer on the table between the cream pitcher and the plate of croissants. He hadn't gone to the counselor because he was worried about her, and because that had become an impediment. He realized, now that Beverly had asked the question, that it was Deanna’s job -- that rationally he shouldn't have to shy away out of concern for her. His friendship with Deanna was getting in the way.

"She's still haunted by whatever's putting the woe in her eyes," Beverly said, with some sympathetic sadness in her own fair face.

"Has she talked to you at all about it?"

Beverly sobered at that. She watched him with growing anxiety. "You're going to say it's impacting her duties. Because ordinarily, she should have approached you, as it's clear you're going through something, and she's supposed to address it to see if you're impaired."

"I don't have to say anything, apparently."

"Are you going to talk to her about it, or are you going to delegate it to me?"

He settled back on his couch, looked up at the viewports where the stars were streaking by at warp, and sighed. "You're her supervisor. Also her close friend."

"That makes it difficult, sometimes, you know. And you are too, which is why you don't want to do it."

"All right, I'll talk to her." He had actually been thinking that it would be easier for Deanna to talk to Beverly about whatever it was -- he knew already that he would go into it hating that he had to do it, and feeling completely awkward about it. That Deanna would know exactly how he felt usually compounded the awkwardness.

After breakfast, after checking in on the bridge and then going through the logs for gamma shift, he settled on the ready room couch with a second round of coffee and called in the counselor.

She was in uniform, and it occurred to him again that she had been consistently so, after Jellico's departure. It wasn't the first time he wondered about that but he made a habit of not allowing himself to be distracted by the trivial. As long as her attire was acceptable within regulation that was enough. She entered the ready room slowly as if fearing an ambush.

"Good morning, Captain," she said as she settled on the opposite end of the couch. Her hands settled in her lap, primly.

"I wanted to speak to you about something -- you have been struggling with something for a long time, I think. And I've tried to respect your privacy, and yet I find myself at the crux of a dilemma. Because I have been having difficulties as well, and yet you haven't found your way here on your own to -- "

He stopped to stare as tears began to gather on her lashes, and then spill down her cheeks. They sat frozen together for a while as she stared at the couch cushion between them.

"I'm sorry," Deanna said at last. It wrenched his heart to hear the despair and sadness in her voice, and the pain flitted across her face -- impatiently she snatched at the tray, almost knocking over the coffee pot in her grab for a napkin.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

She stopped dabbing at her eyes and stared at him -- it struck him that she hadn't really looked at him directly in a long time, and now that she did he could see the blood vessels and the weariness in her eyes, the longsuffering and woe, and her black-on-black irises glistened.

"Would you like to schedule an appointment?"

The stiffness and formality unexpectedly hurt him. He'd reached out to her as a friend, in the end -- the determination to be formal and address things as an officer had failed. His concerns were mostly for her, not his officer, as it was clearer all the time that it was something in the personal realm and that it was not a simple matter; weeks, months, had passed, without seeing that ongoing sadness diminish.

A flicker of the pain he felt appeared in her face -- her lip twitched, and more tears spilled from her lashes, but she redoubled her efforts and sat stiffly with her hands clenched together tightly between her thighs.

"I would like to help," he said quietly, tentatively, and refused to let himself escape the uneasy situation. Now that he'd opened the door, he suspected that it would be the last chance he would get to address whatever was bothering her. And he found that it was very important to him, that he was hoping that he could help. Whatever that entailed.

Unfortunately, insisting led to her slow disintegration into tearful, wordless, fearful and angry attempts on her part to stop crying. Her hand over her mouth, she struggled for a moment to regain composure, then she had both her hands over her face.

"You're going to tell me that I can't help, and I'm going to insist again. It might become an argument," he said. He wasn't sure why he started babbling, but continued to narrate the hypothetical conversation just the same, since she wasn't willing to start a real one. "You'll tell me it's personal and I should remember that it's none of my business. I'll be grumpy and tell a half-truth about not wanting therapy in the first place and play off my concern as professional because I need good officers while wishing I wasn't such a pathetic and inadequate friend that I can't somehow inspire you to tell me how to get rid of the horrible lingering sadness in your eyes, that kicks me in the gut every morning."

She rewarded him with an ungraceful snort, and then a sharp inhalation as she used the napkin to destroy the remainder of her makeup.

"I know you don't want to tell me. I suspect there aren't very many aboard you feel that you can tell. Whatever it is, I can tell it's been there too long, and it's not going away. So I can offer you a handkerchief and a cup of tea once in a while, and hope that you'll let me know if at some point there is something else I can do to help?"

Her face twisted and she looked away, at his fish tank, at the floor. At nothing, some point in the air between his desk and the coffee table. And then she looked at him, finally with a little composure. Her expression was a blend of pathos, determination, resignation, and acceptance -- the kind of look that said she had reached a compromise with herself, her feelings, and that it wasn't going to make her happy but that she would do her best to live with it anyway, because it was what you did, when things beyond your control happened to you.

It resonated with him. He smiled, thinking about the last message from Nella -- she had been determined to keep in touch and the last brief missive had been a good indicator that the determination was waning, as she become busy in her new post at a space station examining an interstellar nursery.

"I can guess that it lingers on, because these things do, and that you don't have the luxury of having someone of your own to confide in the way I have done with you, over the past few years. So come with me to the concert tonight. It's not the same, I suppose, but it will help me to get out as well."

She almost lost it again, but after the wince she recovered quickly. Clearing her throat, she said, "Do you need help?"

"Beverly thinks so. I know from experience that time and refusing to sit brooding endlessly helps, and it wasn't as though it was a very long relationship."

Deanna finally reached for the second cup, which he'd left out for her. "I know how much you cared about Nella," she said quietly, some of the pathos evident.

From anyone else that would have been a reason to bluster and deny. He left the statement as it was, and said, "And I've learned to let it go, as she's in the process of doing, whether she would admit it or not. I might have told myself never again, as a younger man. I might have insisted that door should be closed forever now that I've proved that I'm useless at relationships."

She sipped her coffee and reached for the cream pitcher. "But now?"

"I'll stop trying to make predictions and move on. The future will be there when I get to it."

"What time is the concert?"

"Seventeen hundred, I believe."

Deanna drank coffee, now that it was adequately doctored, and smiled a bit. At long last -- but the sadness remained. "I have appointments I should be getting to," she said quietly. "Thank you -- I especially appreciate that you aren't forcing me to tell you everything."

"You've never forced me to do anything. And I'm sure you're more than capable of asking for help, if you actually need it. It may not have been me you would go to, but I wanted you to know I'm here if you need me."

Her expression started to shift, but she was on her feet and in motion, no time to interpret it. "I'll see you at the concert."

And so he did, and she sat between him and Beverly, in the second row, listening to Data play his clarinet. And then she chatted briefly with them, with others, in the aftermath, as everyone milled about congratulating the musicians, with several others -- Will Riker was also there, and he exchanged a few words with her also, and then she was leaving, as the first officer watched her heading for the door at a good clip with puzzlement on his face.

"Did you talk to her?" Beverly whispered. They had been talking to Data, and the android had turned to someone else who'd come up to praise him.

"I did. But I still don't know why. She won't talk about that."

"But it must have helped, she seems more at ease."

"We'll see," he murmured, turning a smile on Data when the android came back.

\-----------------------

Picard sat in his ready room, staring at the artifact sitting on his desk. He admitted whoever rang for admittance automatically, and sat up a little when the counselor came in.

"That's the artifact your professor left you?" She sat in one of the three chairs on the other side of the desk. Today her hair was down, loose around her shoulders in waves instead of tightly-coiled curls.

"A Kurlan naiskos."

She once again had the contemplative, sad, bitter expression that she sometimes still wore, in more relaxed moments. A sign that the situation that had brought her to tears several months before still afflicted her. Her eyes flicked up from the sculpture to his face, in recognition of the sympathetic sadness he felt for her.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said quietly.

Picard nodded. "It's everyone's loss."

"You loved him," she said, gently, and once again he accepted what surely would have earned anyone else a blistering retort or denial. "We lost a scientist whose brilliance led to great discoveries. You lost family."

"I regret not going with him. I've regretted it often."

"And then you don't -- it's that way sometimes, being so torn between things you feel passionate about, torn in two and wanting them equally but unable to reconcile."

He smiled, slumping back in his chair. "That sounds like something you know as well."

"Yes."

Looking up from the naiskos, he discovered that she'd gone stiff in her chair, and her expression softened to wistful regret. "Are you all right?" He wanted to take it back, reword it. Instead he added, "Is it getting any easier?"

"In a way. Spending time with friends helps. I've been meditating a lot. The problem is what it is, there's no changing it."

She seemed to be less agitated talking about it. Still, he resisted temptation to ask questions. He hadn't seen anything that led him to believe the relationship problem was with any of the senior staff. She was helping Worf with his son, something he thoroughly approved of and hoped would reduce the conflict between the Klingons. She seemed friendly enough with everyone else, and he knew Will had lunch with her at least once a month, thanks to administrative tasks they shared.

Picard took the lid off the naiskos and arranged the smaller pots in a circle around the larger vessel.

"How old is it?" Deanna asked. Not a question anyone else had asked.

"At least twelve thousand years."  
"It reminds me of a matryoshka," she commented, picking up one of the small pots. "All the little faces."

"A what?"

"The Rozhenkos gave one to Alexander. It's a set of nesting dolls -- from tiny to large, all different-sized versions of the largest. The traditional pattern is a woman in traditional dress. The ones Alexander has are interesting -- the largest woman has a smile, but all the smaller versions appear to get sadder and sadder, and the tiniest doll has only eyes like dots. As if it represents a progression from sad beginnings."

"How are Alexander and Worf doing? I hope they are arguing less."

"They are, but I wonder what would happen if I stopped going twice a week to mediate," she commented, then immediately looked upset. "That was bad of me."

"He's my friend. I've a great deal of sympathy for his situation -- I wonder sometimes. It could happen to anyone, I suppose, though I'd be shocked at this point if a child showed up on my doorstep."

"You don't strike me as someone who would be careless -- what?" She'd clearly sensed his reaction, though he hadn't laughed out loud.

He started to carefully put the pieces of the naiskos back inside the large one. "Oh, I was so very careless. I'm incredibly fortunate that I've avoided so many possible consequences to the very stupid things I've done."

She had another despairing expression, as she had had a number of times over the months -- it led him to a little of his own, wishing he could help her shake the sadness that still dogged her. A tiny smile took the edge off the sadness; she met his eyes.

"I've had my share of regrets, too," she whispered.

"Haven't we all?" He had to rearrange slightly to fit the last pot inside the larger vessel. "You know most of my list, actually."

He glanced at her as he moved the naiskos aside, and felt that kick in the gut that he usually had when it was obvious she still struggled with the pain of whatever she suffered. Her expression of despair had shifted into outright desolation.

"Deanna?"

He wouldn't ask questions -- he'd completely sworn off being nosy in any way, despite his curiosity. He'd expected she would be better and yet she seemed to make no progress. He would think she'd gotten better and then see her sad again. Meanwhile, since their conversation in his ready room when she'd almost fallen apart about it, he had stopped missing Nella and gone back to normal -- or as normal as he had ever been.

Deanna stared at the floor, her expression apparently a battle between anger and despair, now. 

"It's nothing you can help me with," she said at last.

"I can indulge in wistful thinking, just the same."

It wasn't enough to break the sadness. It took the edge off, led to another understated smile.

"You've been such a good friend," she said.

"Not good enough."

"Jean-Luc," she chided fondly, then bowed her head, her hands in her lap. "There is nothing anyone can do, including me, about unrequited...."

She hesitated to finish the sentence, and her cheeks reddened -- perhaps his state of disbelief had something to do with it. He frowned. She couldn't have talked to whoever it was about it. The senior staff had, at different points, all noticed the change in her. Even Data had mentioned noticing a 72% reduction in the frequency of Deanna's smiles. Beverly still occasionally fussed over breakfast, expressing the concern that Deanna showed no sign of continued improvement.

"You can,” he said at last. “You could tell him.”

He watched her open her mouth, probably to protest, but she closed it again, stood up, turned to go to the door. “I think he probably knows, but I know he doesn’t feel the same,” she said as she left.

“Deanna!”

It wasn’t fair, he thought, sinking back in his chair. Not fair at all.

Beverly showed up half an hour later. “I came instead of calling because I was sure I would find you unconscious on the floor,” she exclaimed, her hands tucked in the pockets of her lab coat. “I know you would never intentionally dodge an appointment.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” he blurted. “I was… caught up.”

She stood in front of the desk and stared at the naiskos. “Thinking about Professor Galen?”

“Among other things.”

Beverly studied him for a moment. “Other things?”

“Let’s go. I’m late for my physical.”

She accepted it, and didn’t press him further, thankfully. By the time he left sickbay he’d calmed down enough to start thinking again. 

It couldn’t be Will, that Deanna was talking about. It wasn’t Geordi, or Data. She saw so many people for counseling sessions that he suspected it might be one of the crew -- she would never let herself compromise her relationship with a client, so that made more sense than anything else. He’d thought for a few minutes that it was him but in thinking about it more, he discarded the theory -- why would she be talking to him at all, if it was? More likely she only confided in him because she knew he would never tell anyone. 

“Computer, location of Counselor Troi,” he said in the lift.

“Counselor Troi is in her office.”

“Is she alone?”

“Affirmative.”

He hesitated. If he went, he would be going back on his determination to avoid being pushy. 

“Deck eight. My quarters.”

There were many things that he could do, and none of them sounded good enough. He settled in with the book he’d been trying to read for weeks, with new determination. Sometimes being a good friend was difficult. He’d make it work.

\-----------------

“I’m worried,” Will said, as he waited.

Picard looked up from the monitor. “You’re not usually such a master of brevity.”

Will snorted, sitting upright -- he had been slouched in the chair. “He’s spending a lot of time with Deanna. I think she might be falling for him.”

A number of things went through Picard’s head, including his own concern for their friend, but he was sure his concerns were different. Will, so far as he could tell, had never been told a word about whoever Deanna had feelings for, and the first thing that occurred to Picard was that the other Will Riker might be a too-convenient escape for her.

“He’ll be departing soon enough,” Picard said diffidently. “We’re meeting the Gandhi in a few hours.”

“She might go with him.”

Picard looked at his first officer, as if to ask what his point might be.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No, thank you, Number One.”

Will left the ready room with an officious bounce in his step. Picard shut off the monitor, bored of the report regarding the away mission on Nervala, and sighed. It was his turn to slump, and wonder if he might lose a counselor when the second Will Riker departed. 

The chime was almost predictable, but instead of Mr. Data to bring in the reports of the latest round of level three diagnostics, it was Deanna who came in. He sat up, offered her tea -- she accepted, so he went to the replicator alcove while she seated herself.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, as he handed her a cup and returned to his chair behind the desk with his own.

“So far as I am aware, yes. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see if you were still interested in that conference on the psychological effects of long-term deep space assignments. It’s in two weeks.”

“Of course. It will be interesting just to find out why such a conference has to be three days long -- I have to wonder that there is so much to say on the subject.”

She sipped, and looked a bit confused.

“Something wrong with the tea?”

“You were feeling a sense of dread, and now you’re feeling relieved. I have to wonder what you thought I was going to tell you.”

Now, this was awkward. “I can’t tell you.”

Her brow wrinkled. “You can, but you won’t.”

“I suppose I should preface it by saying that if you’re forcing me to tell you, it won’t be fair of you to kick anyone’s ass because I repeated something that was said to me.”

“Captain,” she chided. 

“It’s been pointed out to me that Lieutenant Riker… well, he’s been quite interested in you.”

“It isn’t like you to indulge in idle gossip,” she said, disapproving.

“Apparently there was also some apprehension about whether you might leave Enterprise with him. While I would be concerned for a number of reasons, I would understand… it’s been difficult for you to remain aboard, I know.”

He hated watching her face while she struggled to maintain her composure. She went through a few versions of the angry, impatient face, and ended in a composed, resigned frustration. “I’m not leaving.”

When Picard started to reply, she went on, interrupting, shocking him.

“He appealed to my occasional wistful recollections of what it was like… it’s hard to deny the appeal of returning to one’s first love. But I realized that as much as recapturing that heady and intoxicating period of my life tempted me, I’ve changed too much. I’m not naive enough to think that it would be the same. And I don’t think I would be able to tolerate having nothing to do all day… the Ghandi has a counselor.”

“Hm,” he replied noncommittally. Deanna was leaning, her forehead in her hand, her elbow on the arm of the chair. On the other arm she balanced the cup he’d given her.

“I want to stay here. I enjoy my life here.”

He glanced at her face again, and the luck of timing resulted in their looking each other in the face. The look in her eyes was arresting. He forgot about the tea cooling in the cup at his elbow on the desk.

“Good,” he said at last, shaking himself out of it. “You would have been missed.”

The set of her lips said displeasure; she inhaled, her nostrils flaring slightly, and her eyes focused on the floor. 

“I think Data was interested in the conference as well,” he commented, taking the cold tea back to the replicator.

“Geordi said he wanted to go, too. We’ll leave a couple of days before? It will take a while to get there in a shuttle.”

“It will be good to have some time off the ship, for a while,” he said, returning with hot Earl Grey.

“Yes.”

He glanced at her face, sighed, and redirected his attention to his steaming tea. 

“I’ll go back to my office,” she said quietly. “If I may be dismissed?”

“It’s not you,” he said, not wanting her to think that. He heard the faint note in her tone that sounded like hurt. “I’m just… wishing. Again, that I could find a way to help you. I suppose it’s frustration on your behalf….”

Now she was rolling her eyes, then putting the cup on the edge of his desk. “It’s not….”

“I realize. But it’s hardly fair, that I can go battle alongside Worf and do things for other friends, yet I’m completely powerless to do anything for you. This problem has lingered at least three months too long.”

A sad smile tempered the frustration. “You have helped. I haven’t really -- well, I suppose I haven’t talked to you about it either, not really, beyond identifying the problem. But it’s not as sharp a pain as it used to be. I think time is doing its work.”

He nodded, a bit relieved to hear that. “I hope you find a complete resolution to the issue. I know well enough how difficult it can be to have -- anyway, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Will we see you tonight at the play?”

“Yes. See you later.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes -- something had stoked the despair in her eyes, in fact, and though he wasn’t sure if it was something he’d said, or a stray thought, but he regretted just the same. She took her tea with her as she left.

Picard thought about Beverly, and the long weeks it had taken to stop thinking about her after she’d rejected his hinting -- a remembered regret could still hurt, he realized. Perhaps he should stop bringing it up and leave Deanna alone from here out. He’d already made it clear that he would listen, if she wanted to talk. She could make that decision well enough without his hinting at it.

\-----------------

Picard watched the Romulan ship go to warp, and turned from the viewport to his first officer, sitting across the desk from him. “Good job, Number One.”

“I could say the same to you -- it sounded like you had quite an adventure in time. How was the conference?”

“I wish I could say I learned many useful things -- at least it let me catch up on my sleep,” Picard said. 

Riker smirked and looked tired. “Geordi said you do great impressions.”

“Yes, my ‘sleeping captain’ could use a little work, however.”

“I was hoping Deanna would be better -- I’ve been concerned about her for months.” Riker slumped a little more, arms crossed. “There’s been something going on with her -- I know it’s not her mother, and it was there long before the -- before we picked up Thomas. Sometimes she just looks sad. And if she sees me notice, she smiles and denies.”

“Is it affecting her work?”

Riker stared at him for a moment. “You have no concern, whatsoever. No curiosity.”

“I don’t involve myself in -- “

“Yes, I know, but I also know that she’s your counselor, and she thinks of you as a friend -- she’s very attached to you. And she wouldn’t be that way if it weren’t reciprocated, so I have to wonder…. You know something,” Riker exclaimed.

“Will,” he chided, staring the other man down.

Will’s jaw moved a little, and then he set it. “Okay. I’ll butt out. But whatever it is between you….”

“Will, there is nothing at all between us. Stop reading into this. She is a good friend, and a good officer. And I don’t involve myself in her personal affairs -- I know something has been amiss, but she isn’t talking to any of us, so far as I can tell, and I know that because Beverly worries and vents about it. You know if she isn’t telling Beverly she’s telling no one.”

“I guess I’m grasping at straws -- I’ve been worried. But it looks like there’s nothing I can do.” Riker rose to his full height and stepped around the chair. “I’m going down to engineering.”

After Will was gone, Picard went back to the reports various officers had filed, about the time distortions and their effect on the ship. It had been alarming to find their crew frozen and their ship apparently locked in combat. He was glad he hadn’t made assumptions -- the end result had been positive, a hopeful step toward better relations with the Romulans.

He left the ready room and made his way to his quarters. He picked up his flute, palmed it, returned it to the shelf where it usually sat between the naiskos and the Gorlan prayer stick. It was typical after a stressful near-catastrophe that he spent time feeling listlessly anxious, losing interest in things he normally found restful. After more consideration he once again settled down with a book, and spent some time trying to immerse himself in a very old tale of romance and intrigue. 

His door chimed and he actually felt a little relief, setting aside the book. “Come.”

Deanna, still in uniform, came in hesitantly. “Do you have a moment?”

“Of course. Are you all right?”

She came to sit on his couch -- out of arm’s reach, he noted, and perching on the edge of the cushion. “I -- “

He waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She frowned at the floor between her feet. “Would you care for something to drink? I was just thinking about getting something cold, refreshing and bitter as hell.”

She snorted. “All right. Whatever that is.”

He returned with two glasses of a Vulcan beverage that he predicted she wouldn’t like. She winced, but took a second sip before putting it on the table. 

“You survived the adventure without a scratch, I see,” he commented, as if they hadn’t been in the same briefing just an hour ago.

For the first time in a long time, she smiled at him -- it was the kind of smile he rarely got from anyone, happy lights in the eyes and all. “I did, thanks to you and Geordi and Data. It was so nice to find out that it wasn’t what it seemed -- rescue missions are so much better than firefights.”

“I agree. I was just contemplating something to eat -- I haven’t had anything since the shuttle, and it may not be dinner just yet but I’m starving. Would you care for anything?”

Within a matter of minutes, without a thought for anything but food, they were sitting at his dining table together and starting to eat. She had selected a multi-cultural plate, creating a salad of vegetables from four worlds, and clearly had done so for long enough that it was a preset the computer retained for her. 

They chatted about the next planned mission, and he was happy to see there were no lingering moments of sadness. Perhaps they were out of the woods, at long last, and she had resolved whatever the issue had been. 

When she departed after their early dinner, she said good night, then hesitated at the door, giving him a look -- but before he could analyze it she turned and left without another word.

He got his flute and the sheet music he was working on, and started to play. It wasn't until much later, as he got ready for bed, that it occurred to him -- he’d never ascertained why Deanna had showed up at his door in the first place. 

\--------------------

Picard pulled on a sweater. It might be that he would find himself scrambling into a uniform if there were a red alert but he didn’t care -- after living in a uniform for an extended period after the crash, he wanted to wear something different.

“Come,” he responded automatically as he left his bedroom and the door chimed. He stopped short of the replicator and waited, and Deanna came in.

“I wanted to check in -- see how you are doing after the adventure you had,” she said with a pleasant smile. “Will mentioned there was a crash landing?”

“Come in, have some tea with me and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“As long as there are no sweets with the tea,” she said, heading for the couch while he went to replicate tea.

“That would seem to indicate that our attempts at diplomacy went equally well,” he said, bringing a tray and sitting on the couch with her to pour them both tea. 

“I may not eat anything for a month,” Deanna said, taking the cup he handed over. “Thank you. So how did your time with Voval go?”

He explained the situation, how he had been set up to re-enact the final days of the victims of a previous crash, so that Voval, a shape-shifting entity, could understand love. They sipped Earl Grey and she listened without comment to the end.

“It’s one of those things that doesn’t translate well across cultural barriers,” she said finally, quietly. “We can’t simply manufacture love on demand, to help them understand. And I suppose in a way I’m fortunate that my own shared experience went so well -- Loquel may very well have experienced chocolate as being unpleasant, or even poisonous. And here you were anticipating another boring diplomatic mission.”

“Boring, no. I’m grateful that I was able to figure out what was going on -- I shudder to imagine what would have been, had I not done so. Who knows how long Voval would have continued to try to persuade me to fall in love with Anna.”

Deanna gave him a look that he thought was contemplative. “Perhaps if you had been there long enough with only her for company?”

“No, I doubt it. Anna wasn’t my type.”

“Perhaps it’s a counselor’s way of looking at things, but I don’t tend to view people by category, or ‘type’.”

He looked at her, trying to determine if he was being teased. She didn’t seem to be amused. “In trying to replicate the situation in the records they accessed, she made me a prisoner under the guise of trying to help me. She lied to me. And the manipulation was more obvious when I attempted to make efforts to change the situation -- it wasn’t going to work. I suppose what I’m saying is that at the least, I prefer honest people who have the same basic values, who will work with me instead of against me.”

She gazed across the room at something, instead of at him, and sipped. “I suppose then that the next Federation diplomats to contact the Iyaarans need to explain a few things about how interactions with us are not structured by circumstance or shared experience, but by an agreement to play by the same rules.”

“And that the rules can be subtly different, for different kinds of relationships. You really wouldn’t want your mother to bring home an Iyaaran stepfather, would you?”

Deanna made a face at him. “Do not do that to me. Now I’m going to have nightmares.”

“I wasn’t aware that it was possible for you to become tired of chocolate. I seem to recall you saying something to the effect that you would never turn down chocolate.”

“Can we stop talking about chocolate?” She looked vaguely queasy at the mention of the word.

“I’m beginning to suspect that our relationship has been built on a lie,” he said, anticipating one of the teasing exchanges they sometimes had. She had, over the past weeks since returning from the conference, appeared at his door about every other week and joined him for dinner -- he had invited her once, but most of the time she simply showed up and he invited her in. It wasn’t as though anyone else came for dinner, ever, and he enjoyed her company. The teasing she did usually wasn’t about him directly, as others were wont to do. 

This time, she sipped tea, and continued to look somewhat nauseous. 

“Are you all right?”

“Fine. A bit tired, now that I’m starting to relax -- watching Loquel turn eating into a job was exhausting, I suppose. I’ve never seen anyone eat constantly for so many hours.”

“I would ask if you wanted to stay for dinner but it sounds like that would be too much for you -- unlike you, I didn’t spend much time eating, over the past three days.”

“Then I will take my leave and let you have your dinner -- thank you for the tea.” She left the cup and headed for the door. Something in her manner told him something was off.

“Deanna?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said politely, in counselor mode, smiling as Counselor Troi always did, and left the room. Leaving him with the impression that he had done something wrong, and with no idea what, he was left to fume a little at himself.

At least it was Deanna -- she was generally more forgiving than most of the women he had ever known. Reassuring himself that time and sleep would help, he replicated dinner, and spent the evening reading.

\-------------------

Picard hesitated as he left the lift, but shook himself and went down the empty corridor. He did not make a habit of going to quarters belonging to female crew, and would not, but he was concerned and had no official reason to call her to the ready room. 

The door opened to reveal Deanna in some loosely-draped teal outfit that might have been a robe, or perhaps a dress -- he was anxious and not wanting to spend the time debating. She gazed at him, questioning, tucking her hands into her sleeves.

“I was worried,” he said. “I don’t usually get requests for time off from you, and there wasn’t… Beverly said you hadn’t been in sickbay. And I haven’t spoken to you since your mother left the ship. So I thought I would see if you were all right.”

A faint smile, and she gestured for him to come in. Self conscious as hell, he did so, and tried not to gawk at the interior of her quarters -- they weren’t remarkably different than his own save for the vases of flowers and the one non-regulation, non-standard chair that looked like someone might vanish into the padded folds of it. 

“I hadn’t had the chance to thank you, for being willing to go through Mother’s journals with me,” she said. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you. It was no imposition -- she is well, I hope?”

“Well enough that she was flirting with the captain of the transport we put her on. She’ll be all right.” Deanna sat down with him, turning slightly toward him on the couch. “At least she's being somewhat less outrageous toward you than before.”

“What about you? Still recovering from the experience of finding out you had a sister?”

She nodded, thoughtful and sad. “I wish sometimes that Mother would stop living in her own little world. I feel like my life has been a slow reveal, as I left home and discovered that other people didn’t function the way she does. I wouldn’t have -- “

When she didn’t continue, he narrowed his eyes at her. She smirked, her hand going to her cheek. 

“I suppose I would ask you to continue, if you did that,” she said.

“But I’m not your counselor.”

Sighing, she lost the smile and looked down at her lap, smoothing folds of the robe/dress along her knees. “I wouldn’t have been so susceptible to the charms of the first man I ever fell for, if I had had more grounding in the real world, where people don’t try to live by romantic notions the way Mother does.”

“Regret -- “

“Yes, I know,” she interjected, before he could repeat a previous conversation on the subject. “We agree on that point. But I’m reminded again that it was something I pay for on an ongoing basis, some days.”

He said nothing. It was a useful tactic, most of the time, and one he had learned from her.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a few moments of introspection. “I’m being a poor conversationalist.”

“You seem tired. I should leave you to rest.”

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said, and he knew she couldn’t mean duty -- she tended to talk as though that were a separate life, apart from the time they sometimes spent together off duty. “I’ve missed you.”

Words caught in his throat for a moment. “You should come for dinner, tomorrow. If you’re feeling better.”

She gave him a weary, thankful expression, and reached over to put her hand over his, where it rested on the couch cushion next to his leg. “Thank you. I believe I’ll take you up on that.” And then she removed it, likely deliberately ignored how tense it had made him, and stood up -- he did so in kind and smiled as he turned for the door, trying to breathe and walk at the same time.

But the following morning, he beamed down to Kesprytt to meet with representatives to discuss their admission to the Federation. And then he and Beverly were captured by the Prytt, and the entire fiasco played itself out. He spoke with Counselor Troi, about the experience, both of them did -- it was strange, Beverly agreed with him on it, that weird stereo effect as they tried to describe the way things were, without mentioning anything personal. He left Beverly with Deanna and went to his quarters for the night. The following morning Dr. Selar removed the implants from their heads. He went back to his quarters on medical leave, to rest, and they hadn’t had to scold him to get him to do so -- adjusting to being alone in his head again proved more difficult than he’d guessed it would be, when he’d been chafing about having Beverly’s thoughts and emotions crowding in with his own. He contacted her and had her in for dinner, to process and discuss the experience with the only person who truly understood it -- it was difficult for he himself to comprehend how completely overwhelming it was. Awash in memories of feelings that had reawakened briefly upon seeing Beverly again when he took command of the Enterprise, strong, resonating feelings that Beverly didn’t react negatively to -- the younger Jean-Luc had wanted so much, fantasized so much, and it pulled him in completely. 

And then, Beverly left. She rejected the idea of reviving old feelings from the past. She left him to ruminate about that.

And as he went to bed, some hours later, he remembered the touch of Deanna’s hand on his, and the dinner with her that didn’t happen, and all the overwhelming feelings about Beverly that the implants had pulled out of the distant past, all the pleasant what-ifs, all the fantasies of might-have-beens and might-be’s all faded away again. Leaving him with overwhelming self-hatred.

It was true, what she had told him. Past mistakes could generate much regret in the present, and he too had no real grounding in anything but romantic notions to rely upon, to keep him from making such terrible choices.

He felt worse, each time over the following week that he deliberately did something that would prevent seeing either Deanna or Beverly. He became stiff and mechanical in briefings. He walked away from the smiles of his senior officers. He went back to his quarters and sat doing nothing at all, hating himself. He went to the holodeck and spent a few hours riding, but it wasn’t good enough; he switched to fencing, and then moved on to boxing, something he was miserable at but achieved the desired results. It was different. It was new. He’d never dedicated himself to punishing himself with such fervor before. 

A few weeks crawled by, in such fashion. He started to feel less angry and more repentant. And then he started to think again, and thought that it was worth a try. Deanna would know he was telling the truth when he explained the circumstances, after all, and surely she’d been aware of his travails. He thought about all the times they’d forgiven each other for sins committed in the line of duty, and came to a decision. 

But when the lift opened on deck seven, he saw her walking away down the corridor -- arm in arm with Worf. He let the door close again. Back in his quarters, on deck eight, he quietly sat in the same spot on his couch and began hating himself anew, eyes closed, and the despair rose in waves as he thought about the real ramifications of it all. 

He’d lost his counselor, and he’d probably lost his friend. Definitely, he had lost any hope of anything else that he’d started to think might be possible. And there was no one left in the galaxy that he could talk to about any of it.

He ignored the annunciator religiously. It started to go off, now and then, when he was sitting alone glaring at nothing, or closing his eyes and enduring the hell he’d brought on himself. If there was a red alert or some other emergency, the bridge would page him. He spent alpha shift on the bridge or more often in the ready room, going through the motions.

Finally, Will came into the ready room, dropped into the chair across the desk, and stared at him.

“Commander?” Picard said diffidently. Most days, he managed to be merely numb, unless something reminded him of the counselor or the doctor.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“No one looks at each other in briefings any more. Half of us don’t know what’s going on, the rest just glare at the table.”

Picard raised an eyebrow at him. 

“All right,” Will said softly, giving up, shaking his head as he left the ready room. 

Half an hour later, the chime sounded, and then it was the counselor coming in, with a concerned expression. He found himself looking over her shoulder, instead of at her face.  
“Counselor,” he greeted with all the enthusiasm of someone who’d been ordered to clean the head.

It sent her gaze diving to the floor, but she rallied with determination. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at her as if she’d suggested jumping into a black hole.

“I should have rescheduled dinner,” she continued, her cheeks flushing. “Would you like to -- “

Her sudden silence must be a response to his return to anguish, which was hard to set aside.

“No,” he managed. Anything more and it probably would have led to things he didn’t want to reveal. It was already miserable, knowing that she knew how he felt.

Already, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, she drew in upon herself. Miserable multiplied.

“We need to talk,” she said in a strangled whisper. “I’ve been -- afraid. And when I do manage to -- you won’t answer the door.”

“I have a ship to run.”

“Please,” she whispered. “You said you weren’t going to close doors.”

He kept his head bowed, his eyes closed. Tried not to let himself cry.

“Will’s talking about relieving you of duty. He doesn’t know what to do. I can’t let him do that -- I’m sorry that I came to you here but you won’t let me in any more. Please come talk to me. I’ll be in holodeck two.”

He heard the door open and close. 

It took him a few minutes to tap into the part of him that he relied upon to do his job, despite anything else that might be happening in his life. That he hadn’t recognized what Will was doing brought home to him the severity of the situation. 

No one even looked at him when he left the ready room and made his way off the bridge. Will was in the center seat, studiously staring at the main viewer. 

Holodeck two had a program loaded, and as he stepped through the arch he noticed the red indicator go on, signifying a privacy lock, and then the arch vanished. It left him in a clearing in a forest, with a couple of chairs standing in the grass, in sunlight. Deanna waited for him in one of them. He approached the other as if facing a firing squad.

“After Kesprytt,” he began. But lost momentum -- he heavily sat down in the chair, feeling adrift and struggling to put aside the conviction that had led to weeks of despair. “It was too overwhelming.”

“I know,” she whispered. “It was nearly as disorienting as post-assimilation. I wanted to come talk to you, as a counselor, but it wasn’t going to work this time. So I tried after your shift was over, and you wouldn’t answer the door.”

“Did she tell you….”

He couldn’t look at her face. Her boots didn’t tell him anything, other than she was sitting carefully upright and still, her toes parallel. 

“She told me what you said. It was like what happened with Lieutenant Riker, I think. I was drawn in by the seductive power of the might-have-been. Except I knew that wasn’t going to work, and I wasn’t directly connected to his desires and his memories.”

A wave of anguish pushed its way up his chest. He let it abate before he tried to respond. “It wasn’t that I thought it would work. I felt -- so -- “

“Stop,” she said, in the familiar soothing manner of Counselor Troi. It brought tears to his eyes, reminded him of how much he’d missed her -- he ran his hands down his face and tried deep breaths, and closed his eyes. 

“I almost -- I came looking,” he managed. “Tried to -- but -- “

“Jean-Luc. I want to explain something, if you’ll hear it.”

Wearily, he nodded. 

“I think you knew why I kept coming. I knew you felt better, when I spent more time with you. Having dinner with me made you happy. I didn’t have to hear you say a word, to know.”

“But I -- “

Her hand on his knee stopped him. “Let me finish. Words need to be said, so we know that what’s felt is real, Jean-Luc. I didn’t want to say things too soon, and take us on a steeper trajectory. Everything that happens to us, it happens so fast -- you live a life in twenty minutes, we save the ship in nine hours, we find allies and make treaties in a few days. My mistakes -- the relationships that went nowhere -- happened too fast to be real. I wanted to know we were on the same trajectory at the same time, or I wanted nothing at all -- I don’t want to ruin a friendship or a working relationship on a snap decision. I know that you don’t either. But.”

Picard put his hands over his eyes again, grinding the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

“You can stop kicking yourself for the past weeks of self torture any time,” she said, with the wry twist of sarcasm he had missed.

“You told me -- you encouraged me, when Nella -- “ The thought of how that must have hurt her closed his throat. 

“I encouraged you to be happy,” she said softly. “It was not easy but it was what you needed to do, just then. You felt the same, when we found Will’s transporter clone on Nervala. You were concerned that I would make the decision but you could have endured it, then. It’s not the same any more. I’ve been -- “ She had to stop for a moment, but continued in spite of sounding like she was crying. “I’ve been crying with you all this time. Hiding in my quarters. Will tried to get me to talk to him, so many times, and he’s figured out that it has something to do with you but he can’t make out what’s going on. Beverly suspects and went so far as to come to me and beg me to talk to you. I had to tell her I tried several times. Worf has a different slant. He knows something is bothering you but supports your right to self destruct in private like a good Klingon. He asked me -- I’m sorry, it makes me laugh -- he asked me if I would approve of his advances. I was so flattered, but I took him home and told him that wouldn’t work for me.”

“You knew I was there.”

“I knew, but I didn’t want to call his attention to it. I’m sorry.”

“This is why,” he exclaimed, letting his hands drop to his lap. “This thing, I do this to myself, I think it’s gone bad and I can’t work it out, and I’ll just -- “

“Look at me.”

He raised his eyes to hers, for the first time in weeks. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do this right.”

“You’re a loyal and supportive friend. And you’re more than happy to punish yourself, in the event of the unlikely betrayal.”

“I can’t do this,” he exclaimed. 

She sighed, the corner of her mouth twisting. “You mean you don’t want to fail. Redefine failure, Jean-Luc. Relationships fail when you stop trying. Not because you make mistakes.”

“So… you’re giving me another chance?”

Deanna rolled her eyes as if appealing to the heavens for more patience. “That would require me to say you’d lost the first one.”

“But -- I was -- “

“You told me that you valued the kind of person who let you make your own choices. When was I supposed to stop letting you choose to suffer?”

“When the first officer threatens to take away my ship, apparently,” he said bitterly. “Please don’t wait so long again?”

“Or, perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, because I wouldn’t want to be too demanding -- “

“I can choose to talk to you, instead of descending through several circles of hell and consigning myself to loneliness," he finished bitterly.

She nodded. Contemplated him for a moment or three, with a faint smile. “Well?”

“Tell me something?”

“All right.” Deanna crossed her arms and gave him a fond look.

“Was it me? All along? You were so sad, for so many months, when I came back from being in the custody of the Cardassians. You never talked about it.”

He almost regretted bringing it up, but it was one of the nagging doubts he’d had, during his self imposed purgatory, that he’d misread her. He'd changed his mind about his interpretation of her tears so often throughout the months of wondering, then hoping. He was dismayed to see tears in her eyes. She glanced away, at the breeze shifting the leaves of the trees, and turned to look at him again with determination. 

“It was what you said -- you stayed, let yourself be tortured, because you didn’t know if he had Beverly, but you absolutely refused to take the chance that she would be tortured. It made me realize again how committed you are to your friends. It told me you were the kind of man I always wanted to find and had given up on finding. I started to feel differently about you, and because I knew how you felt about relationships I didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell you. And then you were feeling… closer to Nella. It surprised me. It left me in the position of simultaneously realizing that I had a chance, and that I’d lost it. Except that I didn't exactly lose it.”

Words didn’t come to him right away. He couldn’t stop looking at her, while he went through the conflicted feelings he had about that. “We should have dinner,” he said at last.

Her head went up, and her tentative smile widened as she blinked away a few tears. “I believe we should.”

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered plaintively. “Don’t let me lock you out any more, if I’m being stupid.”

Her smile dwindled.

“Okay. I won’t be stupid. I panicked. I’m sorry.”

Another eye roll. “Jean-Luc.”

“I need to tell you something.”

“Yes, you need to tell me you’re done with this ridiculous self destructive thing, because I can’t take it any more!”

He groaned, waved his hand in resignation. “All right. I can adapt. Just talk to Deanna, don’t lock the door.”

“Where do you want to eat dinner?”

Picard stood up, and held out a hand. She rose from the chair and took his fingers in hers, without hesitation. When he looked in her eyes, she didn’t turn or look away.

“I understand what you’re saying, about taking the time to let things happen, instead of rushing into things. But I can’t go forward without telling you -- I love you.”

She started to cry again, but this time, happiness glimmered behind the tears instead of sadness. “I love you.”

He glanced around, at the forest. “How do you feel about seafood? I know a fantastic place in San Francisco.”

“The Cliff House,” she half-asked.

“Yes,” he exclaimed with a grin. “Exactly that. It’s been there for four centuries, through many remodelings.”

Deanna smiled and called for the arch. “We could go for dessert at the little ice cream place, down the street.”

“Back to eating chocolate again?”

She glanced up from searching the database manually. “When you’re not overwhelmed, you know that the best things about us don’t change.”

“I do now. And I know that some of the less desirable things can change, thanks to you.”

When he slid his arm around her, she leaned against him. He closed his eyes and smelled the light scent of her perfume, rising from her hair. 

After the program changed, the arch disappeared and left them on a street in front of a familiar building. “We’ll be investigating a missing medical transport,” he said, guiding her toward the entrance with a hand in the small of her back.

“I heard. There was this briefing.”

“All right. I’ll be better tomorrow,” he said ruefully. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said as they stepped into the dimly-lit foyer and the hostess approached with a smile.


End file.
